Finally, after stumbling across Forno Bravo 2 years ago, I’m happy to announce that our Pompeii is underway!
Bit of background: My husband Dave is a stonemason/bricklayer (ex-Brit and old-school) who has had his own construction company since 1981 in Alberta, California, Oregon and BC. As well as masonry, he specialty is concrete, both precast and poured in place. I am an ex-restaurateur, foodie and THE right-hand gal! We moved from the mainland to an acreage on Vancouver Island, BC, Canada, a couple of years ago and are undergoing renovations; this season, our deck revamping included plans for a WFO. Our 23 year-old son is a masonry apprentice so will be helping and learning alongside.

Foundation:
We built the concrete pad and block foundation last month but (paying!) projects got in the way so Dave was only able to begin the WFO last Thursday. I am taking pics and notes as he goes so that we can share our experience and views, adding to the goldmine of information here which has helped us.
Dave incorporated an ash-dump which will be at the back of the oven, connected to a clean-out door at the back of the base. Both the ash-dump and the clean-out door were ordered through Woodland Direct (USA).

Dave poured a concrete lintel over the firewood box, reinforced with re-bar. Cheaper and stronger than angle-iron, we believes in using as little metal as possible.

Dave used a 5:1 ratio and found that the following method best (contrary to FB): Mix the portland cement with water until a creamy wet slurry (he used a barrel mixer). Slowly add the perlite until all incorporated. He poured a 4” bed which took 3-4 days to get really hard in our cool climate.

Oven Floor:
Dave started working on the oven floor the day after pouring the perlite floor, which is a bit early. Keeping the forms on helped protect the edges.

The floor was made from skagits, a 12”x24” firebrick we sourced from Calyburn Industries after contacting Andrew (Saltspring Tuscan Oven) on this site. Despite 30-odd years in the trade, this product was new to Dave but he felt the larger size/lack of seams would be beneficial to the oven floor. They were expensive ($35 each) and a bugger to cut but he says he’d use them again. After much debate, we reduced our oven size from a planned 42” to 40” to better fit the foundation and the planned exterior materials.

The Dome:
Using medium-duty firebrick and refractory mortar, Dave started on the radius for the dome today. Son Alex did most of the cuts which helped speed the process. The angled slice taken off each brick is of course the perfect dimension for wedging the brick. (These will be cut-off later).
With the top of the oven calculated at 20”, Dave made 6 wood templates, 20”x20” (1/2 the diam) to align courses and support the brick. They are not fastened in any way and allow for some jointing on the inside of the dome, leaving a pretty clean interior as he goes.
He was working a wee bit faster than the mortar was drying so it was a tricky day.

The inner Arch:
Dave will close the dome tomorrow but finished the inner arch today.
(Just a note on the downloaded Pompeii oven instructions: the suggested amount of firebrick for the dome of a 42" oven is 135 - we'll be well beyond that on a slightly smaller oven.)

So we have closed the dome! It was more challenging than Dave thought it would be and had to be done over a couple of days. He ended-up supporting the last few rows on a mound of sand (this was formed over a plank supported by buckets placed inside - very high tech!). Most of the difficulty was because of the bricks not being sufficiently dry; our weather is cool, damp and the bricks are being cut on a wet-saw. With relatively quick bricklaying, the bricks didn’t have enough dry-time and Dave recommends cutting them the day before under these conditions. You can see our creative drying methods!

The Dome inside:
Dave dismantled the forms while the mortar was still wet; this enabled him to joint-up the inside and remove excess mortar. For Dave, this is important; ‘snots’ (mortar overflow) shouldn’t be left to drop onto food and are extremely difficult to remove when dry since this mortar sets so hard. Dave used excess mortar to parge the top of the dome and will continue once we get some more.

Also, as you can see compared to previous photos, he cut-off the extensions of firebrick ‘wedgies’ that were sticking out between the brick around the whole dome. He added a concrete floor to the firebox as well.

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